League Updates

Sleepy College Town Notes

CORVALLIS, OR:  I am coming to you today from lovely Corvallis, where Melanie and I enjoyed a rare evening to ourselves last night. Melanie is now running an ultra-marathon through the forested hills west of town. She expects to take 7 or 8 hours to finish. Let’s see if I can finish this update before she’s done.

Those of you familiar with Corvallis probably already know this, but Corvallis is a very nice town.  I have not ventured much off the Highway 99W corridor before this trip.  I don’t know if I’ve even been on the OSU campus proper until last evening when Melanie gave me a quick driving tour.  My motel window looks out over the track and a softball field. Across the street is Reser Stadium.

EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Old Detroit Wolverines 46 23 .672 361.6 252.4
Haviland Dragons 42 27 .615 4 333.6 264.5
Cottage Cheese 39 28 .576 6.8 304.4 256.0
Peshastin Pears 38 30 .553 8.3 289.1 258.8
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 35 29 .542 9.2 305.4 280.6
Flint Hill Tornadoes 35 34 .510 11.2 322.1 316.8
Canberra Kangaroos 32 37 .460 14.6 362.5 392.2
Kaline Drive 32 37 .460 14.7 273.7 297.9
Portland Rosebuds 24 44 .355 21.8 269.1 365.3

 

 

Old Detroit: L, 6 – 7. .234, .260, .468;  4.3 ip, 3 er.  New Wolverine rookie Lance McCullers faced the M’s last night.  I was rooting for the M’s wholeheartedly anyway.  This was helped by the fact that I allocated all of McCllers innings to the M’s minor leagues.

Haviland: L, 3 – 4. .211, .286, .342; 6.7 ip 3 er.  Did I tell you that we got up before 6 am to get Melanie to her race? So now I’m drifting off to sleep in the middle of writing this update.  See, this is harder than you thought. I bet Melanie doesn’t have to struggle to stay awake and coherent .

Cottage: “W”,  1 – 5. .211 .250 .342; 21.7 ip, 9 er.  Ben Zobrist Comeback Watch:  2 for 5 with a double and a homer. Now batting .254, .362, .525 for June and .248, .329 .450 for the season.

Peshastin: W 2, L (-1); 5 – 1.  .31o .375 .357;   10.7 ip, 1 er. Jay Bruce Redemption Watch:  1 for 3 with a homer and a walk. Now batting .262, .375, .492 for June and .233, .341, .430 overall.  Wow.  Who knew that Jay Bruce and Ben Zobrist were the same player?  (Did I mention Chris Sale’s 8 ip, 0 er, 14 K, 0 W effort last night?)

Pittsburgh: w, 4 -3.  .306  .316  .444;   9 ip, 2 er. So which is the catcher of the future: Tyler Flowers (2 for 3 with a homer, rated 6.6 at catcher) or Blake Swihart (2 for 4 with a double, rated a compassionate 4.3 at catcher)?

Flint Hill: L, 2 – 4. .222, .326, .333;  1.3 ip, 0 er.  Guess who is leading the Tornados in offense this season.  Joc Pederson (.249, .385, .529).  Guess who has the best ERA.  Robbie Ray: 1.09.   See? These are interesting players.  You CAN produce EFL-class headlines — but not when Pederson goes a plain vanilla 1 for 4, and Ray doesn’t even pitch.  Am I supposed to write about Johnny Giavotella’s 2 for 2 with a double and a walk? Ok, what should I write about it?

Canberra: W, 9 – 5. .412 .474 .441;  4 ip, 0 er.  Edwin Jackson Come-Back Watch:  3 ip, 0 er. For June: 12.3 ip, 2 er.  For the Season: 25 ip, 7 er, 2.52 ERA.  Who knew?

Kaline: W, 6 – 6.  .333, .381, .564.   7 ip, 5 er.  I should like Justin Turner.  I had Justin Turner last year and enjoyed his great stats as a part-time player.  But this year he’s taking AB away from Alex Guerrero, Old Detroit’s only DH this month.  So when Turner goes 3 for 3 with two doubles and a homer and a hbp, I have trouble taking any pleasure in it.

Portland: L, 1 – 10.  .267  .267  .267.   2.67 ip, 2.67 er.  No, wait, think I dozed off again.  Here’s another try:

Portland: L, 1 – 10.  .267 .267  .267.  7 ip, 7 er.  I realize this look just as suspiciously neat, but I assure you, I stayed awake all the way through that. The Rosebuds didn’t walk, get hbp, or hit any sacrifices.  They carefully stopped at first on every hit — even Mookie Betts, who had 4 of the Rosebuds’ 8 singles.  And the pitchers were careful to allow precisely 1 earned run per inning.  Well, on average, they did. Mike Wright came back from the minors just in time to balance things out when Chris Heston somehow sloppily allowed only 3 er in 5.7 innings.

 

1 Comment

  • I have to admit that I had serious doubts when Jamie took Robbie Ray. “Does he know anything at all?” I wondered to myself. Apparently he does.

    And I hadn’t heard that Ron was going into the wearable technology business. In this blog post alone, he’s advertising three different watches:
    • the Ben Zobrist Comeback Watch,
    • the Jay Bruce Redemption Watch, and
    • the Edwin Jackson Come-Back Watch.

    I’m interested, and certainly want to support Ron in his entrepeneurial efforts, but I think I’m going to hold out for the Arismendy Alcantara See I Told You So Watch.
    AA’s Iowa batting line: .265/.329/.512/.841
    AA’s Iowa batting line for June: .271/.329/.557/.886